Merope & Louise

 

After seven intensive weeks of teaching academic writing at Massey I feel a bit tired. The photo of Louise Bourgeois massaging her temples and Emma Smith's image of dark-eyed Merope rather sums me up at the moment. With a stack of assignments to mark, a growing number of art essays to write, and an edition of poetry chapbooks to make, my fun paper and fabric craft projects will need to be put on hold for the next couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to sharing some new things with you very soon, notably a new collar design and a show-and-tell of a repurposed red wool coat.

Wishing you all a very happy Easter holiday.

PS: if you would like me to post a paper furniture tutorial please let me know.

some traditions

In many respects I'm an old fashioned kind of girl and there are a number of traditions that I adhere to from year to year. At the start of daylight saving, for example, I springclean my flat from top to bottom, and on the day after daylight saving ends I get the bus into town and buy a new batch of stockings and socks for winter. Jack laughed when I woke up on 4 April and declared that it was 'hosiery day'. Off I went and when I returned home later that day I had a nice selection of unpilled socks and run-free tights to show for it. I store them in this pretty embroidered linen bag made by a lady long ago who clearly shares the same traditions as me. Her embroidery is just beautiful.

cute as a button

I made a cute set of buttons yesterday using a 1950's Belgian linen napkin that I bought from a lovely vintage textile shop in Wellington's Thorndon village in 2006. On the same day my sister found a huge antique key in another Thorndon shop. She strung it onto a thin piece of black ribbon and wore it with a black wool dress that she describes as her Italian mourning dress. I have a good memory when it comes to recalling good shopping experiences. I have a bad memory when it comes to identifying what day of the week it is.

I felt that the design of this linen napkin called for a set of buttons with one large feature button (38mm) and five smaller buttons (19mm). 

Have a happy and productive week everyone.

Show and Tell Friday

Sometimes a shop seems more like a museum than a retail outlet. There is one particular inner Auckland treasure trove that I like to visit when I have a town day. I dropped in there yesterday to escape a sudden downpour and to dry out before making my way up the hill to University. The shop is called Upstairs Antiques and you can find it on the first floor of Queen's Arcade in lower Queen Street. The owner is a lovely old lady who has run the business for 34 years. Walking through the door, it feels as if you've stepped into her cluttered parlour rather than into a shop.

The merchandise ranges from crazily expensive antique glassware, books and ceramics to  reasonably priced sewing notions, fabric pieces  and other pretty items like lace handkerchiefs, still in their boxes, and lovely embroidered linen.

These are two delicate silk swatches with ceramic vase prints. The small print at the bottom of the swatches indicates that they were produced by a cigarette company, although I'm not sure why that would be the case. Perhaps the company sponsored an exhibition of Chinese ceramics back in the day.

I mainly visit this shop because if you ask to see the buttons the very nice lady will produce half a dozen shoe-boxes from beneath the counter, which you can happily root through for a good hour or so trying to decide which ones need to come home with you. I chose a card of twelve red buttons with faceted edges because nice red buttons are very hard to find these days. I also chose two toffee coloured diamond shaped buttons and three unusal green corded buttons that will be great as fastenings for a linen workbag.

As a rule, I'm not generally attracted to 'antique' pieces because really old things tend to give me the creeps, but when the kind woman asked if I'd like to have a look at a box of Victorian lace collars, each one wrapped in acid-free tissue, I found my hands trembling as I carefully removed each piece to examine the incredible handiwork. I imagined how these intricate handmade accessories would have transformed a plain linen garment into an elegant ensemble for wearing to church or for hosting an afternoon tea. The stunning piece, pictured above, with strips of silk in the palest shade of green threaded through the silk crochet, ended up coming home with me. Very indulgent, I know, but the collar fits perfectly and I knew immediately that I would be able to use it as a template to make a contemporary version of it, as I did with the collars I made from old ties and scarves using the antique Amish collar (below) that my sister bought for me at a market in Iowa.

Anyway, designing a new textile accessory will be the perfect Easter holiday project, and I hope to incorporate some pretty fabric covered buttons into my version of the Victorian collar.

Enjoy your weekend!

fabric covered button tutorial

Fabric covered buttons make up a very small subset of my button collection. There's something oldy-worldy about fabric buttons that appeals to my inner Victorian, and for the longest time I've wanted to learn how to design and make some of my own. I knew the time was right when I happened upon a needlecraft booklet in the op-shop last week and turned to this page of lovely linen buttons decorated with blackwork stitching:

Blackwork is a form of needlecraft done with threads of a contrasting coloured thread on a linen fabric - usually black thread on a white ground. The technique uses simple running stitches to build up small geometric patterns. Unfortunately, the booklet didn't give any making instructions, so I just worked it out for myself, and I thought it would be nice to show you the process in case you want to have a go at making some covered buttons yourself.

First, I used a cotton reel to mark out circles in pencil on the back of a piece of linen (an old doily) and stitched around the circle to give me a guideline to sew within. I used my smallest embroidery hoop to make the linen nice and taut for stitching.

Using a single strand of black cotton (not too thick / not too thin) I sewed some little geometric patterns with diamonds, dots, dashes and triangles.

After I'd finished the sewing part, I removed the tacked guideline and cut around the circle, leaving a good 1.5cm of fabric to tuck into the back of the button fastening. You can buy button fastenings from most craft shops and the good thing about them is that they are simple to use. I don't have very nimble fingers, so I put a bit of glue around the back of the fastening to assist with the process of securing the fabric in place. Then you simply click on the back piece of the fastening and you're done.

 Aren't they cute.

I so enjoyed making these blackwork buttons that I plan to continue and make a whole lot more, and put together sets as presents for my craftily inclined friends to embellish their clothes. In the background of the photo you can see some small envelopes I've made for the buttons. The envelopes are cut from a poster produced for a survey exhibition of Marilyn Sainty's fashion design a few years ago. If you would like an envelope making tutorial, please let me know and I'd be happy to oblige.

Happy button making everyone.